What counts as an improvement is a question of terminal values. If all we cared about was money, selling babies ought to be legal. (btw, the second author is a federal appeals court judge in Chicago—it’s probably only essays like this that prevented him from being a Supreme Court justice).
Failing the is-ought distinction is a predictable effect of failing to realize that one is having a terminal value dispute.
What counts as an improvement is a question of terminal values.
Yes, but Pareto improvements are things that everybody can agree are better. Maybe we can relax this to “most people”, because I’m sure there’s some jerk somewhere with the “terminal value” of “all change is very bad”.
As for valuing money, why are you bringing it up in a discussion of terminal values?
Failing the is-ought distinction is a predictable effect of failing to realize that one is having a terminal value dispute.
Explain. I don’t see it.
I’m not sure, but I don’t think it’s coherent to talk about humans having non-negotiable terminal values at all.
A year ago, I was anti-authoritarian, practically an anarchist. I had a strong negative reaction to anything approaching infringement of liberty, exertion of authority, etc. I saw people saying they wanted strong leadership and a stronger state and more rule of law, and I was disgusted. How could people be so evil? Surely this was just plain incompatible values.
Then something interesting happened. I encountered non-straw arguments for why more authority and some infringement of people’s autonomy is sometimes for the better. I changed my mind.
Where are the terminal values in all of this?
I think rather than terminal values, which imply non-negotiability, we should talk about a moral dynamic created already in motion (as explained in EY’s metaethics sequence). This accounts for some things being changeable with moral argument.
With this in mind, I can maybe see where you are coming from with the “politics is about terminal values” thing, but I’d say instead “politics is often about moral disagreements, so you should find the source and argue about morality instead.”
This may not be a good assesment of how you are using it, but I think “fundamental terminal value differences” is often used as an excuse to stop thinking about moral questions that you really should be thinking about.
Political disputes are usually about moral disagreements is an improvement over what I said.
If my meta-ethics is right, that assertion and my original are isomorphic. And if your metaethics is right, my assertion risks being very misleading.
This may not be a good assesment of how you are using it, but I think “fundamental terminal value differences” is often used as an excuse to stop thinking about moral questions that you really should be thinking about.
Absolutely. This is one of the central lessons my sentence was intended to impart.
Failing the is-ought distinction is a predictable effect of failing to realize that one is having a terminal value dispute.
Explain. I don’t see it.
On reflection, I think I was over-hasty here. Failing to notice that a political dispute arises out of a moral dispute tends to cause people to treat moral propositions as facts—to gain political advantage (aka mindkiller). But “is-ought confusion” is usually used as the label for treating facts as moral conclusions. Since that doesn’t function as naturally for political advantage, it probably isn’t as direct a consequence of artificial divide of politics & morals.
What counts as an improvement is a question of terminal values. If all we cared about was money, selling babies ought to be legal. (btw, the second author is a federal appeals court judge in Chicago—it’s probably only essays like this that prevented him from being a Supreme Court justice).
Failing the is-ought distinction is a predictable effect of failing to realize that one is having a terminal value dispute.
Yes, but Pareto improvements are things that everybody can agree are better. Maybe we can relax this to “most people”, because I’m sure there’s some jerk somewhere with the “terminal value” of “all change is very bad”.
As for valuing money, why are you bringing it up in a discussion of terminal values?
Explain. I don’t see it.
I’m not sure, but I don’t think it’s coherent to talk about humans having non-negotiable terminal values at all.
A year ago, I was anti-authoritarian, practically an anarchist. I had a strong negative reaction to anything approaching infringement of liberty, exertion of authority, etc. I saw people saying they wanted strong leadership and a stronger state and more rule of law, and I was disgusted. How could people be so evil? Surely this was just plain incompatible values.
Then something interesting happened. I encountered non-straw arguments for why more authority and some infringement of people’s autonomy is sometimes for the better. I changed my mind.
Where are the terminal values in all of this?
I think rather than terminal values, which imply non-negotiability, we should talk about a moral dynamic created already in motion (as explained in EY’s metaethics sequence). This accounts for some things being changeable with moral argument.
With this in mind, I can maybe see where you are coming from with the “politics is about terminal values” thing, but I’d say instead “politics is often about moral disagreements, so you should find the source and argue about morality instead.”
This may not be a good assesment of how you are using it, but I think “fundamental terminal value differences” is often used as an excuse to stop thinking about moral questions that you really should be thinking about.
Political disputes are usually about moral disagreements is an improvement over what I said.
If my meta-ethics is right, that assertion and my original are isomorphic. And if your metaethics is right, my assertion risks being very misleading.
Absolutely. This is one of the central lessons my sentence was intended to impart.
On reflection, I think I was over-hasty here. Failing to notice that a political dispute arises out of a moral dispute tends to cause people to treat moral propositions as facts—to gain political advantage (aka mindkiller). But “is-ought confusion” is usually used as the label for treating facts as moral conclusions. Since that doesn’t function as naturally for political advantage, it probably isn’t as direct a consequence of artificial divide of politics & morals.